This is Hollie again, leading the full Sunday morning spin class of 11 girls and me. But I don’t show up just for the view, we all work our a**es off for the highest, fastest calorie burn you’ll get anywhere. Every workout, I’m racing like it’s the Tour de France, and end up completely soaked. Plenty of other people in the class take it all very seriously, and this studio is our dojo.

There is no way I could ever get close to keeping up with fixie racers downtown (especially at my age), without these workouts. I can ride a lot harder here than on the road, because I don’t have to worry about saving enough energy to get back home, or to even control the bike. Sprints here are all out power exertions, then collapsing on the handlebars for air. (Forget what I might look like. Just watch Hollie.)